Halfway House
by Kuro49
Summary: Charles/Erik. Beyond the beach, they give ways to an unorthodox method of compromise that hurts more than it is meant to heal. Or the one where Erik punishes himself on Charles' cock for all the things he did and did not do.


I feel slightly bad but yes, this is basically Erik whoring himself to Charles out of guilt. I don't own :P

XXX

**Halfway House**

XXX

It doesn't always happen, but when it does, they cover it up like a dirty little secret and keep it buried from the rest of the world. And the first time they try, they almost vowed off the other.

It has been almost half a year since their separated ways. Half a year of gathering resources, setting up their own individual goals to keep their mind off of the one thing they never want to forget. And instead, their reunion has been nothing but disastrous.

Erik has been close to bringing the building down around them and Charles nearly brings his fingers to his temple, helmet be damned, just so he can convince the world to rip the metal from Erik's head.

Their talk of politics does nothing to soothe their past.

"I don't lose anything."

Erik warns, powers feeling out all the metal in the hotel they are in.

"That's where you're wrong, Erik."

Charles has a death grip on the armrests, blunt fingernails biting into the soft material in his seething blinding anger.

"And I'm always wrong, aren't I?"

If this is their try at compromise then they should stop while they're ahead. This gives them nothing, this only hurts them more. Charles narrows his eyes and there are no tears, not anymore, but their eyes have never lost their heat. The hotel doesn't crumble around them and the helmet stays in place.

"You lose me."

The anger doesn't entirely seep away, it burns at a slower pace just like the frustration that lingers, never really letting go despite the sadness that almost overwhelms him with Charles' words. Erik doesn't choke, doesn't bite back his tongue because this has been long overdue.

It is still painful to look at, the wheelchair, the same smile. _Charles_. And the smile Erik gives him in return is self-deprecating.

"Charles." Loss is an event and detachment is a process, but he hasn't quite achieved that level of separation. Right now, it is all the same, pain and anger rolling into something one of a kind. One that feels like Charles is still trying to get through to him even when those fingers are so close to his temple. And he may look passive but Erik knows better, Charles can raze the world and it will enjoy it. "I lost you a long time ago."

The break has been clean. (_I'm sorry._ The sand is bright enough to hurt his eyes but it is the explosions in the sky and the man he has in his arms that gives him all the reasons to walk away._ But we do not_.)

The building doesn't give ways, the metal still separates them but the anger that strums and the sadness that breaks through their exterior is evident and it isn't going away.

Barely another six months after and they are already crawling back towards the other, battle wounds still fresh beneath their clothes, heart still damaged from their last encounter but beating underneath all their need to be.

000

You've got me in a trap, one where my arms and legs are tangled in the net, one that has my heart in your palm and you're squeezing and squeezing, and I can't feel a thing.

000

In Magneto and Professor X's timeline, the start is where Erik and Charles ended (on a Cuban beach with missiles aimed right at their heads.) And they don't know when it changed but when it happened, no one is surprised.

"Erik, please, don't."

Charles isn't pleading, but it is close. Magneto enters the Westchester house through his bedroom window, opens the latches from the outside and walks into his room. It isn't even the loud muffled thud, of metal hitting carpet, it is the edges of a familiar mind that cuts into his dreams, bringing blood and sand to the forefront of his mind.

And when Charles sits up, Erik is standing at the end of his bed, eyes dark and hooded but mind just vulnerable enough to make sure Charles knows just what he intends to do.

A resolution, signifying that he has come to terms with himself.

The helmet rolls off of the carpet with another slow turn, an empty echo as it makes its way across the wooden floorboards. They never really see where it goes, at least Charles doesn't notice because Erik is pulling off his shirt, exposing skin and flesh in the dark of the room.

"You haven't taken a lover."

Erik's eyes linger on the side of the bed where the sheets lay untouched, smooth and almost crisp. It is cold where Charles drags a hand across the space in distress.

"…Erik." Charles warns as he pulls his hand back to run it through his hair, tugs his fingers in the tangled mess as Erik discards his shirt to the floor of his bedroom. "I have much bigger things to worry about than this."

Charles knows this for compensation because Erik has convinced himself that this is what it is.

They both swallow thickly as Erik's fingers wait on that belt buckle.

"Then let me take care of this one."

His knees hit the bed as his hands find the curve of thighs. There is tugging, the belt falls to the ground and their lips are close enough to kiss and for all the conviction Erik has brought along, neither can bring forth that last effort.

Instead, Erik kicks his pants to join the rest of his clothes and straddles Charles with a slow blink of his eyes, head ducking down so they don't have to see it this way.

And when Erik sinks himself down on him, Charles clenches his eyes shut in a guilty shuddering pleasure, because he doesn't want to see the flash of pain, no matter how slight, flitting across Erik's face at the intrusion.

Even though he can still feel the discomfort, just brushing up against his consciousness because of the abandoned helmet by the foot of the bed. Still they both know this pain is not enough, at least not for Erik who intends to hurt himself in retaliation for the pain he has put Charles through, during those many months since Cuba. Since losing the one family he has always had and then learning he can't ever walk again. Erik doesn't include himself but that goes unsaid because _you lose me_ is something that he can't get out.

Not since that one mistake he wants but can't undo. Not since Charles has said it before him.

Erik bites his lips, silencing the pants and gasps and _pathetic _whimpers he doesn't get to let out. He waits until Charles opens his eyes again, sees him for all the horrible deeds he has and will do, sees the blood on his hands, before he shifts his hips and begins to move. The sudden pace drags a ragged breath from Charles' lips and that faint smile of content is all that he allows himself.

Charles doesn't let that break his heart, no matter how close it nearly comes to it.

He only wants to drag him into his arms and tells him he is forgiven (that there were never anything to forgive) but then Erik might never return and he would've lost the one contact he is still allowed to have with the other man and that is one thing he couldn't give up, no not just yet.

Charles wants. He wants to touch and feel Erik's skin beneath his hands, he wants to caress where the scars rise above the rest, he wants to press kisses to the places no one else has seen and bite a new set of marks on the places people will see. He wants but knows this is not a choice he can make for Erik.

Because this guilt burdens Erik in ways his mother's death could not, the blame he once had for Shaw is brought back but this time it is all directed at himself. And if Charles doesn't let him have this, Erik doesn't have anything else.

Erik is tentative when he lays a palm to Charles' chest in support, heated fingertips gripping against Charles' shirt but he doesn't dare to clench.

And Charles is just the same when he reaches out to catch Erik's other hand in his.

Erik makes a startled growl, and Charles thinks _too fast too sudden he'll be gone when you open your eyes_, but slowly Erik clenches one hand in Charles' nightshirt and laces their fingers together, almost methodically like he is just learning.

Fingernails dig beneath the skin, not even to draw fresh blood but just enough to leave pressure prints, almost like cruel kisses they couldn't lay with lips to skin. Only then does Charles dare to look and when he does, Erik has his brows furrowed, light cascading around the crown of his head. His eyes are dark in the dim room but Charles can trace the sad relief in the soft pants he finally allows himself to let out in Charles' presence.

His naked body is magnificent above him, moving to a pace he himself has set, taut with practiced control and a sort of impatience that makes Charles wants and needs but can't.

"Thank you."

Charles lets out in between the sex and despair and Erik only manages to turn his head to the side, exposing the length of his neck, and murmurs a soft _no_.

"Don't" _please_.

Erik is harsh with himself. He lifts his bare hips, feels the drag and burn, and sinks back down with a quick snap, hissing as he earns a loud groan from Charles. The slight tremors in his thighs, the bare skin brushing along the sheets, the cool air hitting his back drags another breath from his lips and he is both ashamed and confused.

This pleasure is not his, he doesn't get that, not when he has taken far too much from the man beneath him. Erik shifts, a half-formed moan, his own arousal trapped between them.

Erik doesn't reach for it and Charles doesn't dare to touch. The friction, and the pure need and want and will to please is enough. There might be tears and his eyes may be wet but none because of the pain, he wishes it had just been that, but neither is it his self-denial. His back arches, his muscles feel the strain. And when he comes, Charles' name is small and strangled, muffled because he can't let go, snuffed out because he won't allowed himself the comfort of acting like a lover.

"-arles."

Erik doesn't move, not just yet, not while his heart is still pounding in his chest, breath still caught in his throat. Charles doesn't let go of his hand and it is only with reluctance that Erik unclenches his fingers from the shirt he has his palm buried in, a little like an unwanted parting.

"Erik…"

Though it goes without saying that they could change all this. But then nothing will ever be the same and the sacrifices they have made that day would've meant nothing and they aren't ready to admit that, not now, possibly not ever.

He slips free of him with a slick obscene drag of bare skin, semen and a near silent wince that doesn't go unnoticed by Charles but the other man silences him with a hard stare, like he dares him to comment.

"Erik, please. You don't have to do this."

Charles watches as the other strides into the connecting bathroom, a painful reminder that he knows Erik should be nowhere else but here because he _knows_, retrieves a towel and offers it to him like some kind of kind soul who hasn't just been punishing himself on his cock.

"If you have someone else, tell me. ...I won't come again."

Erik's tone doesn't give away a thing but it is in the way he distances himself that gives him away. Charles' chest gives a tight clench at that, he doesn't let his voice waver though.

"There is no one else." Charles takes the towel Erik hands him and wipes himself clean, sees Erik already shrugging a shirt over his head by the end of the bed and adds, almost softly. "There won't ever be anyone else."

The reassurance shouldn't be necessary but he says it all the same because Erik nees it, almost just as much as him.

"Then." Erik turns to look at him, eyes in turmoil. _Tell me to stop._

_You know I won't._ He lets his eyes fall shut. "Goodnight, Erik."

He wants a kiss. He doesn't ask for a kiss. And neither leans in.

And no matter how tired, Erik will walk out on shaky legs, body still unclean and smelling of sex. He won't put on the helmet until he is well off the Westchester grounds and even when he does motion to place the helmet over his head, Erik will allow Charles the time to give a resigned sigh and slip from his mind before he blocks those final tendrils of telepathy.

000

So when they catch me with a hand on the trigger and a tongue in your mouth, I'll push you to the bed and leave them with the mess.

000

It is an inconsistent occurrence that happens again and again.

And since that very first time, the nature of their relationship has changed until it no longer resembles what it once was. And one night, one single night during a span of years apart and together on a battlefield and in a bed in the Westchester mansion, Erik stays the night.

They don't talk their usual philosophy, neither do they make the same textbook arguments. Erik doesn't have his helmet, it is back on the ground where it always is whenever he is in this very same bedroom. And Charles keeps his fingers far from his temple, even when they both know he doesn't need it, they have grown so far at the very least.

Erik doesn't want to tear at their old wounds or the still-building trust but it has been years later and still.

Every cut brings blood. Every thrust, a clean shot bullet in his heart.

It is quite horrible, how much he loves him. How much he longs to wrap a hand around his wrist, cling on tight and pull him into his lap (keep him forever.) And the feelings are nearly identical, mutual at the very least. Because it is not in the way they speak to each other or the bloody approach they take to express their love.

Because if they could, they would.

And nothing else in the world is capable of stopping them.

"If I had the chance, I would hide you from the world." Like he doesn't already know. Erik's fingernails bite into his shoulders and the muscles of his back is taut and the curve of his spine dips. The wheelchair doesn't creak beneath their combined weight and Charles's hands find Erik's hips.

They no longer yell their point across anymore because now they know. They are solemn and sorry and this is still the only reluctant truth they manage to come up with. Charles leans in and buries his nose in the junction of Erik's neck, maps the skin with faint kisses that tells him he is sorry but not really a million times over.

"If I didn't have self-control, that would be you."

_I would lock you away from prying eyes, a place where you will only have me as your crutch, your link to anyone else. And I'll love you and you'll be safe._

Their eyes are dark, their words venom. But the worst part is that they mean it with all their hearts. There is no telepathy or the bending of steel, there is just Erik fucking himself down on Charles when he is in a punishing mood. He will work his fingers inside himself with a ruthless efficiency, sometimes Charles will watch and sometimes he won't, Erik doesn't take notice.

This isn't about him. This isn't about them. This is about making up for the past and ignoring the future all in one.

His sweat drips south and the slide of skin is slick. His hand grips his bare hip and the pressure is enough to brand bruises, Charles hopes someone will notice and ask Magneto how he has gotten those. That makes him a terrible person but he isn't about to deny that.

Charles doesn't touch Erik, let's the man bring himself into completion because anything otherwise is too personal and he doesn't get that pleasure.

He kisses his skin but never his lips.

And they never say _I love you_ or apologize in advance.

Erik thinks he is using Charles' body to punish himself, submitting and servicing without receiving a thing in return. Charles thinks he has this confused because with the way his eyes are fluttering shut, mouth gasping out a near-silent _Charles_, this isn't anything but unrequited love.

And still, they teeter on that halfway point.

000

You'll find me right where you left me. (Still waiting, still wanting, still thinking of you) even when the world is going to hell for all the things we've yet to say.

000

It happens, and it happens and they both believe it will hurt less every time Erik comes to him this way. But each time feels like the reopening of the same wound, a bruise over another one until the pain becomes a part of them and nothing they do escapes that.

Charles lay in bed long after Erik leaves, naked among the stale dampen sheets, fingers reaching back as he caress at that unfeeling knot of scar at his lower back. That single point that marks the break in his body and he remembers.

Their search for their kind. The car rides with the setting sun in their eyes. Erik's resolve, his own determination. And the mutants who said no.

"You can't be." _You can't be trying to protect me, Erik._ Charles lifts his head from the nasty gash on Erik's arm and catches his gaze. It is only then that it dawns on him, call him naïve, call him slow, and Charles reacts in the ways he doesn't know how because no one has ever wanted to protect him, no one cared enough. _You are, aren't you?_ He sucks in a breath, tries to calm himself because now, he is sure. "You are trying to protect me."

Erik doesn't say anything.

And Charles isn't as grateful as he once thought he would be.

"I am not yours to protect." He says in a subtle panic he doesn't hide very well because Charles doesn't need anyone dying for him, least of all, Erik. _I am not some greenhouse flower you can tend to._ _I am high maintenance and starved of attention, you see._ He stares at the blood dripping off of Erik's arm and the red makes him see Raven's burgundy hair that very first night and he thinks Erik can never match up to that time. But he knows he is wrong and Erik is something completely different than what he has always known._ You don't get to protect me, not when you don't care for what happens when I break…_

"You don't get to do this to me." He says as they both shake their heads.

_I do, Charles, I do._ Erik doesn't think he knows any other way to escape his own destructive nature. _Because it'll be my fault._

"Don't." _Don't make this into a self-fulfilling prophecy, Erik._

But he doesn't hear him because a decision has long been made. "I'll make it up to you, Charles." He says as the first drop of blood splatters across the hood of their car. And the red only reminds him of his mother's favourite dress, Kurt's laboratory fire, and Cain's anger.

Along with his own spiralling despair.

_I never wanted you to._

000

When you twist the lid back on the jar, I'll open it the only way I know. And to get to it, I'll smash it all to the ground, you included.

XXX Kuro

*looks away* I admit I just wanted to write porn and see Erik riding Charles. OTL


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